Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 115 grain ballistic tip

From Nosler's website:

Game Recommendations:
Hogs, Antelope, Deer

http://www.nosler.com/ballistic-tip-bullet/

I have to go along with Coyote Hunter, the BT might work but there are better choices. The 120gr Partition killed the biggest mulie buck I've taken, nearly end to end penetration and exit. A couple of friends use the 110gr AccuBond and declare them to be the flavor of the month.

I have no problem using the 257Bob for elk, but the bullets are really important.

Guess it won't work on coyote then either if nosler doesn't recommend it. Wonder if I can put those hides back on those coyotes and they will be fine?

It takes a 270 for coyotes. Anybody knows that.

The experience I've had with ballistic tips is that they explode crows. I would not consider them for elk.

You're misinformed. A .270 is only good for squirrels. Small squirrels.

So if a bullet explodes stuff, does that mean it won't work on elk? Here's a 255 gr LBT hard cast wide flat nose at 2218 fps from my 9.3x62 exploding a gallon milk jug. Bet a crow wouldn't fair any better.

http://vid26.photobucket.com/albums...202218%20fps%20110%20yds_zpsomf5d2cr.mp4

I've seen Ballistic tips fail too many times on deer to ever think about using them on elk. In a perfect situation with the elk broadside and standing, a lung shot would be fatal.
But where I hunt (In timber) perfect bullet placement isn't always possible. I use Barnes X bullets,Nosler E-tip or Hornady GMX bullets. The solid bullets work infinitely better on raking shots or frontal shots IMO and experience.

Which BT's? Older style? Newer "hunting" style? Which caliber running what velocity and at what range was impact?

Every time I see a post like this I basically ignore it unless their is the questioned information accompanying the post.

Lol. A high power rifle made a crow explode so it's not a good choice for larger game. Crows are great test media.

I never considered bullet testing on crows. Thanks for the tip! Yeah, the elk I hunt are the same size and density as a crow, so it makes sense that I should test bullets on crows. I should look for a controlled-expansion wound cavity, I suppose...

I blew a prairie dog up with a 375 ruger and a 260 grain accubond. So that basically tells me it would have bounced off an elk

Funny they add hogs into their recommendation, ever look at the bone and muscular structure of a boar anything over 250 pounds....... much stouter then the average deer.
Antelope are built like birds, thin bones for speed.
My point being is there is more differences in a 80 lb. antelope doe and a 350 lb boar then there is between a 350 lb boar and an elk.
I know more then a few people around here that consider their 25-06s big elk guns and use factory loaded 120s ( figure .257 Roberts velocity) and do not litter the forests or mesas with wounded animals........ JMHO

P.S. I will be carrying a .300 with some type of Partition or big core lokts and the wife will carry the 7x57 with 160 gr. Partitions, so you know where my money is on.

It must be very confusing to be Nosler. Or Sierra. Or Speer. Or Hornady. I don't think I've seen consistency in any of their recommendations. Nor do those recommendations match my or others' experience consistently.

Bullet manufactures play it safe. They don't want to recommend a bullet, and have it fail.

I was just looking in the Hornady #7 bullet list in the front of the manual. I picked up some 150 SST to try out in a 30-30 Contender 14", and took a peek at what Hornady thinks of this bullet: Muzzle velocity 2700-3600, recommended for medium and large game. Who here agrees with that? Anyone loading a 150 SST in their RUM for elk/moose? Yikes! I've seen them near-varmint at 3k on deer. Which isn't a bad thing at all.

From what I've seen, they should do just fine at 2100-2150 MV from the Contender for deer, and elk if I ever end up trying that. Maybe more expansion tests are in order?

They should do ok at your velocities. I will never load them again for hunting, personally. I had 150 ssts dynamite on small
white-tail does. This was from an 18.5 inch barrel on a .308, so the velocity was only around 2600 fps. It was a lung shot also, which should not have done that if this junk bullet was as good as they profess. They are accurate, but I think that I would even prefer an a-max over the sst.

Neither are very durable, however. I much prefer the Interlocks.

Bugger (and everybody else who thinks because a bullet "explodes" small varmints it won't penetrate on bigger animals),

Contrary to popular belief, big game bullets expand rapidly, usually within their own length after they hit skin. This has been proven over and over again both in media and game, and is the reason the most severe damage is around the entrance hole.

The exception to this is some hollow-points with tiny holes in the tip, such as Bergers, where the hole is actually closed during forming. These usually penetrate a couple of inches or so before starting to expand. But except in rare circumstances when they don't expand at all, soft-points, plastic-tips and hollow-points with actual holes in their tip all start to expand as soon as they hit something.

I have "exploded" varmints with various big game bullets over the years, including 100-grain Speer Hot-Cors from the .250 Savage, 180-grain Winchester Power Points from the .30-40 Krag, 220-grain Hornady flat-nose Interloks from the .38-55, and even 270-grain Core_lokts from the .375 H&H, which not only scattered prairie dogs all over but left a nice crater in the ground. Have also used various Nosler Partitions from the 60-grain .224 to the 180-grain .30, with the same effect. The very first Barnes Triple Shock I ever saw hit an animal was a 140 at around 3000 fps from a .270 Winchester, which hit a coyote right behind the shoulder at around 200 yards, leaving an ENTRANCE hole I could have shoved my fist into. I suspect it would have exploded a crow or prairie dog or even a jackrabbit just fine. Two days later the same rifle and load killed a spike elk, and the bullet exited the chest.

If you're going to come up with examples of why a certain bullet won't penetrate an elk, you'll have to come up with something other than blowing up varmints.

The older I get the more I like the .25 cals, Ive had very good luck with accuracy and doing the job on whitetails up to 225# with 110 gr accubonds. A couple have been head on shots and both stayed together very well ,jello ed the vitals and ended up down around the cod sack just under the hide. In fact the first three bullets I have ever recovered in whitetails have, are accubonds,very best WinPoor

Not a .25 fan, but this research article does the .25 proud. This study was covered by Layne Simpson in Petersen's Hunting, Oct. 2011, ppg. 64-69.

http://www.dnr.sc.gov/wildlife/deer/articlegad.html

Bottom line, .25's were at the top of the list of effective WT rounds. Also, soft C&C bullets killed WT's faster than harder premium bullets, runners covered half the distance before dying.

I think the sample number of 493 WT's was enough to establish statistical probability, soft bullets kill WT's faster than hard bullets.

I don't think the sample number was sufficient to prove .25's are superior, the differences were too subtle. Quarter bores looked good, nonetheless.

DF

If your rifle will stabilize that bullet it will kill elk just fine. Been there, done that.